Monthly Archives: April 2012

The media was a buzz over the weekend regarding the proposed budget announcement to increase the contributions tax rate from 15% to 30% for individuals who earn more than $300,000 p.a. In 1996, the Coalition Government introduced the super surcharge to help ‘fix the mess’ of the previous Labor Government. This time, it appears the … Continue reading »

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The SMSF Academy is pleased to announce its next SMSF webinar on Family Law & SMSFs. This session includes Accredited Specialist in Family Law, Melissa Cantwell as a guest panelist. Melissa will discuss key issues of family law when dealing with SMSFs and the important role of the advisor when dealing with payment splitting of … Continue reading »

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Here we go again… The rumour mill is in full-swing with news that the Labor Government will look to target superannuation in their pursuit of bringing the budget back to surplus. This video courtesy of SkyNews reports that super concessions are set to be cut back in the upcoming budget. What do you think? What … Continue reading »

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I had a question posed to me earlier this week regarding when a member would meet a condition of release if they have never worked. It’s an interesting one because superannuation law prior to age 65 focuses on termination of gainful employment to be able to access superannuation benefits, whether as a lump sum or … Continue reading »

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Today I have achieved a wonderful personal milestone, with thedunnthing blog having its 100,000th visitor. I look back to October 2009 when I commenced my blog as a simple idea to help me better understand technical issues and strategies impacting Self Managed Super Funds. The first month had just 145 visitors (I guess you have … Continue reading »

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As we progress (albeit slowly) towards industry reforms with the superannuation sector, it is somewhat timely that the Australian Taxation Office has released their latest statistical overview of the SMSF industry, providing details of the 2009-10 financial year. This statistical report now in its third year of data was first published as part of the Super … Continue reading »

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The recent release of the 2010 ATO excess contribution tax statistics for concessional contributions showed a 296% increase to date in the number of people caught up in this ongoing saga. The key issue that triggered this enormous spike was the Labor Government’s decision to halve the concessional contribution caps from: Under 50 – $50,000 … Continue reading »

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There has been a significant amount of focus on the benefits of reversionary pensions since the ATO released draft tax ruling, TR 2011/D3. The ruling considers the issue of where a pension will cease in the event of death where there is no automatic reversion to a beneficiary. This reversion will only occur where either: … Continue reading »

The powers provided to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to deal with issues of non-compliance by SMSF trustees has been reasonably inadequate, something that was acknowledged by the Cooper Review Panel as part of the Super System Review. The ATO in many respects had been known to have two options in dealing with trustee contraventions: … Continue reading »

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The Australian Taxation Office last Friday provided an update to the Excess Contributions Tax (ECT) statistics. Many in the industry have been waiting to see the impact of the Labor Government’s decision to halve the concessional contributions cap for the 2009-10 financial year. As you can see from the chart below, it was significant, with … Continue reading »